Park Day 1, Part 1 Volcano Bay - Sunday, May 19, 2019
I have difficulty sleeping Sat night partly because I am on Pacific Time, but mostly because I am excited and nervous for tomorrow. The plan is for my mom and I to RD VB for early entry which is at 9 am. CBBR is a 5 minute walk from VB. Sounds easy right? Not for us. We have a morning ritual of coffee brewing, where is my whatsit, more coffee brewing, I can’t find this completely nonessential item, ok, I found it, we’re ready, oh, no! I don’t have my ticket. I have never made it into a theme park before 9:30 am.when I have been with my family. The only park we have ever roped dropped successfully was Typhoon Lagoon and that was for a 10 am opening (though that required driving from AoA). Plus, I need to upgrade my 2 park AP to a 3 park AP. CBBR has a ticket desk in the lobby (near the gift shop), but it was already closed when I arrived the night before.
I get maybe 2 solid hours of sleep in and am out of bed around 7 am. We left the curtains open and there is a beautiful view of the volcano (taken at 7:09 am per my timestamp).
We are on a lower floor (I think it was the 2nd) and can see some of the access road (shown in photo below). There was very little activity on the access road during the morning and evening when we were in the room. I’m pretty sure I saw a VB rental cabana being driven on a truck in the middle of the night. The room was completely quiet at night; I only noticed it because I was awake.
Just after 8 am, the background music at Volcano Bay is turned on and you can hear it a little bit from the room. I actually really love that. The music is very mellow and laid back. I also love being able to see into the park. We once stayed at the Grand Californian and had a room overlooking the monorail and Grizzly Peak. My favorite thing about that was watching and hearing the park come to life in the morning.
It’s 8:20 am; we’re still in the room. Enough admiring the view, time to get moving! I still need to get to the ticket desk and pick up something to eat and coffee (I can’t drink coffee on an empty stomach). We head to the lobby which is a few minutes walk away from VB (towers are next door to VB but lobby is in center of resort). My dad is skipping VB this trip; he’s not a big fan of water parks. He says have fun and goes to grab a breakfast sandwich on his way to USF. My mom and I get in line at the ticket desk. Only a couple of people ahead of us, but in my experience, ticket lines can take forever. Not the case year. In 2 minutes I’m being helped. Team Member is friendly and efficient and I have my new pass is record time. Unfortunately, no time to grab food, we need to walk back across the hotel and get through VB security in the next 15 minutes.
We made it to the back of the RD pack before the opening gong sounded! I’ll take it. Crowd isn’t too large; we are all held under the room by the ticket booths. Sorry, I don’t have photos. We weren’t in the pack long enough to relax. I had already put my phone away and was preparing to speed walk. They check room keys and direct those with early entry privileges in one direction and day guests in the other.
First up is renting a locker. Our first time at VB, in June 2017, we were a group of 5 and planning on spending all day at the water park so we rented a cabana. This time it’s just 2 of us and our focus is do as much as possible then meet my dad for lunch at IOA and do water rides there. My sister arrives tomorrow midday and she dislikes water rides. Today is the day for doing those! We fuss around with the locker rental and ended up with a larger (and more expensive) locker than we needed. Now out to the slides. Unfortunately, I have no photos as my phone spent the morning in the locker.
We head to the aqua coaster first via Rainforest Village towards the back of the park, but the pathway is closed off there because it early entry. So then we head around closer to the volcano and pass the entrance for Oh no and Oh Yah drop slides. There is no wait so we go right up the steps forgetting to take off our water shoes. We’re sent back down to put our shoes on the rack. Then back up (still no wait, barely anyone in the area). Finally, we are on the slides! Whee!
Now it’s off to the aqua coaster! This time we remember to take off the water shoes (water shoes need to be removed on all the slides; you can wear them in the lazy rivers and lagoon pool). There’s a standby line, no TapuTapu virtual wait needed. Line moves quickly and we are soon speeding down and up hills. Line has built up after we finish so we get in the virtual queue which is posted 20 minutes and head over to the Taniwa Tubes. We walk right on and then head over to the big green and blue raft rides (Ika Moana and Honu) which are both Ride Now. My mother has issues with heights. She did the big blue( Honu) raft ride last time with us, but it definitely pushed her comfort levels. We elect to ride the tamer Ika Moana which is a walk on. This is the only slide we missed on our last trip. It’s quite fun and a longer ride than Honu (it’s more like Miss Adventure Falls at Typhoon Lagoon but you do need to climb stairs). Our TapuTapus let us know we can ride the aqua coaster now, but we elect to do another ride on Ika Moana first.
By the time we complete our 2nd aqua coaster ride, I am very hungry. My mom isn’t a big breakfast person like I am, but she could use a snack too so we head to one of the restaurants. They aren’t open yet so off to do more rides. I thought VB was going to be crowded since it’s a Sunday and hot and sunny, but nope, it’s totally pleasant. The headliners have virtual queue times with reasonable lengths (30 minutes and under) and many slides are Ride Now. The lazy river isn’t crowded nor is the lagoon. Neither of us wants to do any of the trap door slides. I did both last time and got a welt on my back from the serpentine one so feel no need to repeat today. We head over to Maku Puili. The longest part of the wait is climbing the stairs.
At this point we have done every single slide that we wanted to so at least once. We go grab some food. The place is empty of guests (it’s still early). There were some technical difficulties with using my TapuTapu to pay. Also, you’ll need your physical AP for the discount (mine was in the locker). Eventually, we sorted it out. Food was good. My mom had the Tropical Fruit Salad and I had an Island Chicken Salad which had pieces of fruit in it (including shaved coconut) both from the Grab and Go section. All the fruit was fresh. We specifically wanted light options because we had lunch reservations at Confisco Grill later. We finished off our morning at VB with a few laps in the lazy river. It was glorious. Weather was sunny and hot, but not too hot, the water was sparkling blue and we saw maybe 5 other people during our loops.
Next up will be our afternoon and evening at IOA…
Dad was slightly annoyed that we had purchased real food; but he ended up agreeing that this was the perfect snack to hold us over to dinner.